Richard Whittall:

The Globalist's Top Ten Books in 2016: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Middle East Eye: "

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer is one of the weightiest, most revelatory, original and important books written about sport"

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer has helped me immensely with great information and perspective.”

Bob Bradley, former US and Egyptian national coach: "James Dorsey’s The Turbulent World of Middle Eastern Soccer (has) become a reference point for those seeking the latest information as well as looking at the broader picture."

Alon Raab in The International Journal of the History of Sport: “Dorsey’s blog is a goldmine of information.”

Play the Game: "Your expertise is clearly superior when it comes to Middle Eastern soccer."

Andrew Das, The New York Times soccer blog Goal: "No one is better at this kind of work than James Dorsey"

David Zirin, Sports Illustrated: "Essential Reading"

Change FIFA: "A fantastic new blog'

Richard Whitall of A More Splendid Life:

"James combines his intimate knowledge of the region with a great passion for soccer"

Christopher Ahl, Play the Game: "An excellent Middle East Football blog"

James Corbett, Inside World Football

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Faced with a drop in popularity, intermittent protests
against rising prices, and calls for a mass anti-government demonstration,
Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, is seeking to appease the
country’s youth, soccer fans and activists with promises of change.

Mr. Al-Sisi’s efforts that include a one-time lifting of a
ban on spectators attending soccer matches and promises of revisions of Egypt’s
draconic anti-protest law as well as a review of the cases of youth detained
without trial and monthly meetings with young people to follow up on
resolutions of a national youth conference held earlier this month have however
provoked sharp criticism even before they got off the ground.

Writing in Al Masry Al Youm newspaper,
journalist Omar Hadi rejected Mr. Al-Sisi’s addressing youth as his sons and daughters,
insisting that the country’s youth were citizens with duties and rights. As the
government-organized conference opened, a highlight in Mr. Al-Sisi’s
declaration of 2016 as the year of the youth, Twitter lit up with youth
organizing their own virtual gathering.

Mr. Hadi’s rejection and the counter-conference constituted
far more than rejection of Mr. Al-Sisi’s brutal repression of dissent and
widespread disillusion with the president’s promise of a bright future of social
and economic opportunity.

Against the backdrop of severe economic deterioration since
Mr. Al-Sisi came to power in a military coup three years ago and the prospect
of severe austerity as part of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bail-out
program, Mr. Hadi and the counter conference’s rejection of being sons and
daughters amounted to a rejection of neo-patriarchism, the fundament of Arab
autocratic rule.

A phrase coined by American-Palestinian scholar Hisham
Sharabi, neo-patriarchism involves projection of the autocratic leader as a
father figure. Autocratic Arab society, according to Mr. Sharabi, was built on
the dominance of the father, a patriarch around which the national as well as
the nuclear family were organized. Between ruler and ruled as between father
and child maintain vertical relations. In both settings, the paternal will is
absolute, mediated in society as well as the family by a forced consensus based
on ritual and coercion. At the top of the pyramid, resides the country’s leader
as the father of all fathers.

The virtual conference raised the very issues the official
conference that included sessions on topic such as ‘the relation between public
freedom and political engagement of youth’ and ‘the study of the causes of
violence in football stadiums and the methods of retaining spectators’ sought
to control.

“If Sisi held the #National_Youth_Conference in Prison,
there would have been a larger attendance than Sharm El-Sheikh,” the resort
town in the Sinai, quipped tweeter Naga7_Jan25,
an avatar that refers to the date in 2011 on which mass protests erupted in
which militant, street battle-hardened soccer fans played a key role that led
to the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak after 30 years in office.

“Where else are they going to be? They are either going to
be buried in the ground, or imprisoned above ground or thrown off the grounds
completely,” added Adel Emaldelden.

Mr. Al-Sisi told the official conference that “the
government, in coordination with the relevant state parties, will study the
suggestions and proposals to amend the protest law … and include them in the
set of proposed legislation to be presented to parliament during the current
session.”

It was not only youth that Mr. Al-Sisi appeared to having difficulty
in convincing. Egyptian businessmen warned that raids on sugar factories and
traders accused of hoarding the commodity amid a severe shortage would
undermine confidence of foreign investors at a time that they are crucial in
helping Egypt dig itself out of its economic hole.

With the Egyptian armed forces opening outlets and military trucks
roaming the country selling cheap groceries to compensate for shortages and
rising prices, Mr. Al-Sisi, has promised to reduce the enormous stake of the armed
forces in the economy in the next three years.

Mr. Al-Sisi suffered a further setback when Saudi Arabia
announced it was stopping oil shipments to Egypt. Mr. Al-Sisi has irritated the
kingdom by refusing despite massive Saudi financial support to support Saudi
Arabian policy towards Iran, Syria and Yemen.

As part of Mr. Al-Sisi’s fledgling efforts that also included
various failed attempts in the past to either repress or co-opt soccer fans, the
government announced that 75,000 spectators would be allowed to attend a 2018
World Cup qualifier on November 13 in Alexandria's Borg El-Arab Stadium.

The announcement followed the admission of 70,000 people to
a match between storied Cairo club Al Zamalek SC, whose militant Ultras White
Knights (UWK) fans, have a long history of anti-government protest, and South
Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns FC.

While far smaller numbers have until now been granted entry
to stadiums where international matches were being played, pitches have been
closed to the public for much of the past five years for all domestic premier
league games.

The closure was designed to prevent stadiums from again
emerging as platforms for the venting of pent-up anger and frustration.

That anger and frustration has been boiling at the surface
in recent weeks with a new group, the Ghalaba Movement or Movement of the
Marginalised, calling for mass protests on November 11 against subsidy cuts, rising
prices and increasing shortages of basic goods.

Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar, Mr. Al-Sisi’s
promises notwithstanding, has warned that Egypt’s widely despised security
forces would not permit “a repeat of previous attempts at sabotage and social
unrest in Egypt.” In a statement on Facebook, Mr. Abdel Ghaffar said that security
measures were being tightened to “protect citizens and establishments.”

Nevertheless, the publication in Egypt’s tightly controlled
media of several incidents of individual protest has prompted speculation that
some within the military were sending their former top commander a message that
he needs to get a grip on discontent that could spiral out of hand.

The incidents included an Egyptian taxi driver, in an act like
the one that sparked the popular revolt in Tunisia almost six years ago and the
subsequent uprising elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, set himself
alight earlier this month to protest rising prices and deteriorating living
conditions.

An Egyptian television station broadcast an outburst by a tuk
tuk driver who vented his fury at Egypt’s economic plight. The video clip
garnered some 10 million hits on the television station’s website before it was
taken down as well as on social media where it remains accessible.

Large numbers in the Suez Canal city of Port Said, the scene
in 2012 of the worst, politically-loaded incident in Egyptian sporting history
in which 72 militant fans were killed, took to the streets earlier this month
to protest the rising cost of housing.

It remains an open question whether mushrooming discontent
that is spilling into the open amounts to the makings of renewed mass protests.
Many Egyptians look at the horrendous state of post-2011 popular revolt
countries wracked by wars and violence such as Libya, Yemen and Syria and don’t
want to see their country travel that road. Nonetheless, economic hardship and
repression appear to be reaching a point at which an increasing number of
Egyptians are no longer willing to remain silent.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Pressured
by human rights and trade union activists leveraging Qatar's exposure as a
World Cup host and influenced by subtle changes sparked by popular Arab revolts
in recent years, young Qataris are pushing the envelope, broaching publicly
hitherto taboo subjects like homosexuality, women's dress codes, and
citizenship.

The
pushing of the envelope may be the most marked in Qatar because the prospect of
the World Cup in the Guf state has focussed attention on how it will deal with
the expected influx of large numbers of soccer fans from less conservative and
non-Muslim societies. It is nonetheless reflective of a wider trend in the
region in which youth and women are seeking to broaden norms of public and
social behaviour.

The
trend is further driven by the winds of change sweeping the Gulf as the region’s
oil-rich nations unable to continue offering cradle-to-grave security and
guaranteed public sector employment are forced to rewrite their social
contracts that justified autocratic rule.

Formally
and legally nothing has changed, yet individual attempts to push the envelope
are indicative of a desire among various societal groups to have their issues
publicly discussed and addressed and a willingness to run greater risk of
public attack and humiliation in achieving their goals.

Writing
in the Doha News,
Alnood Al Thani boiled the various debates involving attacks on women who fail
to cover their hair while travelling abroad and engage in overseas charity
activities in mixed gender groups, and a Qatari gay who described in an article
what it means to be homosexual in a society that condemns sexual diversity as
well as discussions about who should be entitled to citizenship in a country
where foreigners account for the overwhelming majority of the citizenry, down
to their essence: what it means to be Qatari.

“There
isn’t one definition of being a Qatari nor is there one characteristic that
makes you Qatari. The majority of the population of Qatar is not from Qatar,
and it’s hard to define what it means to be Qatari… There is not a single
definition of being Qatari and forcing someone to cover their hair or hide who
they are isn’t upholding the image of Qatari society… There is nothing
benevolent or respectful in people shaming men and women into complying with
their views,” Ms. Al Thani wrote.

Ms.
Al Thani’s article appeared days after an
uproar erupted because another Qatari women, writer and businesswoman Maryam
Al-Subaiey, appeared unveiled with make-up and her long, curly black hair
flowing freely on French television, to discuss how Qatari women perceive
themselves.

Like
Ms. Al-Subaiey, 28-year-old Saudi pharmacy student Bashayer Al Shehri and other
young women in the kingdom are challenging the country’s strict dress codes
that allow only a woman’s eyes to be visible. Ms. Al Shehri decided to shed the
black veil she wore in public throughout her adult life and to simply were a
headscarf.

“I
just decided that society is changing and I’m going to just try to see, and it
was so easy. I didn’t really notice any difference of treatment of people and
how they perceive me,” Ms. Al-Shehri told Bloomberg
News.

Curbs
on Saudi Arabia’s notorious religious police as part of a bid to be more
attentive to youth concerns and ease restrictions on women encourage women like
Ms. Shehri. Similarly, 14,000 Saudi women have petitioned King Salman to end
male guardianship, which forces women to get a male relative’s permission to
travel and in many cases study or work.

The
women activists are beginning to get traction. A senior member of Saudi
Arabia’s top Muslim clerical body, Sheikh Abdullah al-Manea, appeared to
support the petition, saying the guardianship should apply only to marriage
while Saudi Arabia’s toothless Shura or Advisory Council is expected to discuss
“suitable conditions” under which women would be allowed to drive.

Earlier
this month, gender segregation was all but absent with men and women clapping
side-by-side as New York-based theatrical group iLuminate took the stage in
Riyadh as part of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s effort to loosen
restrictions on music, dance and theatre.

Two
years, earlier a trip by young Qatari men and women to the Amazon rain forest
to build a school for the poor sparked protests because the women were not
covered and travelling with men who were not relatives.

Similarly,
Majid Al-Qatari, a pseudonym for a Qatari gay, sparked outrage by writing an article in
which he described what it meant to be homosexual in the Gulf state. Mr.
Al-Qatari noted that many had lauded the attack on a gay bar in Orlando,
Florida earlier this year, describing homosexuals as ‘God’s cursed people.’

“It
is very jarring living here, it is traumatizing to see that you are the cause
of your parents’ anguish, that you are shaming your family. It is a constant
onslaught, and it is killing me. It has caused irreparable damage to my mental
health. I wouldn’t have chosen to have been born in a place where my life is
tantamount to my death. There is no prospect or future for me here – no
normalcy,” Mr. Al-Qatari said.

In
another challenging of taboos, young Qataris asked on Twitter why professionals
such as doctors and engineers who contribute to Qatar’s development are denied
citizenship while athletes competing internationally for the Gulf state are
awarded nationality to be able to do so.

All
these issues – women’s rights, LGBT rights and, foreigner’s rights – are issues
that were first publicly raised by international human rights and trade union
activists after Qatar was awarded the World Cup in late 2010.

The
pressure from the activists appears to be now jellying with a greater
willingness of Gulf youth to publicly question norms and the need of rulers to
upgrade their autocracies as a way of ensuring survival.

Gulf
youth may not want a repeat of the 2011 popular Arab revolts that except for
Tunisia have largely been smouldered in blood. The revolts’ legacy is nonetheless
one that has encouraged a willingness to pose questions, put issues on the
table, and challenge established norms. It is an environment to which debate
about the Qatari World Cup can only contribute.

While the grumbling is
unlikely to mushroom any time soon into a popular revolt similar to the one
that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, it goes a long way to explain why
Mr. Al-Sisi has refrained from lifting the ban on spectators attending Egyptian
soccer league matches. The ban has been in place for much of the last five
years.

With an anti-government
protest scheduled for November 11 and sporadic ones already occurring, Mr.
Al-Sisi fears that like in 2011, stadia, if opened, could again become rallying
points for the discontented and disaffected.

Militant, politicized,
and street battle-hardened soccer fans played a key role in the walk-up to the
2011 revolt, the protests on Tahrir Square that forced Mr. Mubarak out of
office, and subsequent demonstrations against successive governments.

A Facebook
page titled The 25th Jan Revolution in commemoration of the day
in 2011 that the revolt against Mr. Mubarak erupted has called for a revolution
of the poor. The page has attracted until now only 40 interested people and 23
declarations of willingness to participate. While low those numbers are
problematic given Egypt’s draconic anti-protest law and brutal repression of
any form of dissent, they likely represent a broader sentiment in society.

Despite the low
probability that widespread discontent will jell into a large-scale willingness
to run significant risk and defy the regime, the call for the protest is but
one of a number of incidents signalling that anger in Egypt is beginning to
boil at the surface.

In contrast to 2011 when
the Egyptian military was held in high regard because of its refusal to crush the
revolt on Mr. Mubarak’s behalf, the more recent incidents have targeted the
armed forces, holding it responsible for the country’s dire economic straits.

An Egyptian taxi driver,
in an incident similar to the one that sparked the popular revolt in Tunisia
almost six years ago and the subsequent uprising elsewhere in the Middle East
and North Africa, set
himself alight last weekend in protest against rising prices and
deteriorating living conditions.

The 30-year-old driver, Ashraf
Mohammed Shaheen, who was rushed to hospital with burns covering 95 percent of
his body, staged his protest in front of a military facility in the
Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.

Mr. Shaheen’s protest
resonated on Twitter where the hashtag #Bouaziz_Egypt
gained significant traction. Mohamed Bouazizi was the Tunisian street vendor
who set himself on fire in December 2010 and sparked the Arab popular revolts.

A video of a tuk
tuk driver furious at Egypt’s economic plight that was initially broadcast
on a pro-government station went at about the same time viral logging some six
million hits on Al Hayat TV’s Facebook page before it was taken down. Another
4.4 million have since viewed it on another Facebook page where it had been
posted.

"You watch Egypt on
television and it's like Vienna, you go out on the street and it's like
Somalia's cousin… We had sufficient sugar and enough rice before the last
presidential election and we even exported it. What happened? Where did the
sugar go? They squander our money so-called
national projects that are useless and education in Egypt that is very bad,
even worse than you can ever imagine,” the driver fumed in a man-on-the-street
interview in a popular Cairo neighbourhood.

The driver was lamenting
shortages of staples such as rice, sugar and oil due in part to a lack of
foreign currency and the plunging value of the Egyptian pound on the black
market. “What does it mean that the army says it will subsidise red meat? Why
does the army control electricity? Why do they control gas? Why do they control
the sewers?” she asked in reference to the military’s vast economic interests.

Mothers carrying their
infants protested last month against the rising price of baby milk as a result
of shortages. The protest prompted Mr. Al-Sisi to order the military to dispatch
trucks across the country loaded with baby milk that soldiers sold at half the
market price.

Earlier, Egypt’s state
broadcaster attempted unsuccessfully to calm simmering anger with a series of
television ads that highlighted the achievements of Mr. Al-Sisi’s government
such as the expansion of the Suez Canal.

The immediate future
holds out little hope of economic improvement. Mr. Al-Sisi has urged Egyptians
to tighten their belts further in advance of a $12 billion bailout loan from
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that will require the government to take additional
austerity measures, devalue the pound, and increase prices.

In the time of Mr.
Mubarak, soccer stadia were one of the few places where Egyptians could vent
their frustration and pent-up anger. The stadia also emerged as a grunt school
for militant, well-organized soccer fans who became street battle-hardened in
frequent clashes with the security forces.

With few exceptions,
stadia have been closed since the protests against Mr. Mubarak erupted in
January 2011. Mr. Al-Sisi has opted to keep the stadia closed despite repeated
talk that fans would be allowed to return in apparent fear that they could
again emerge as venue in which anti-government sentiment galvanizes.

Friday, October 14, 2016

This week’s decision by Pakistan’s Supreme Court to delay
ruling on an appeal in the country’s most notorious blasphemy case and the
thousands of security personnel deployed in its capital, Islamabad, in
anticipation of a verdict, lay bare the degree to which Saudi supported
ultra-conservative worldviews abetted by successive Pakistani governments have changed
the very nature of Pakistani society.

At stake in the court case is more than only the life of
Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian mother of five who has been on death row since
2010 when she was convicted of insulting the prophet Mohammed in a bad-tempered
argument with Muslim women.

The court has yet to set a new date for the appeal, but
ultimately its decision on Ms. Bibi’s fate will serve as an indication of
Pakistan’s willingness and ability to reverse more than four decades of
Saudi-backed policies, including support for militant Islamist and jihadist
groups that have woven ultra-conservative worldviews into the fabric of
Pakistani society and key institutions of the state.

In an ironic twist, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
with his close ties to Saudi Arabia is groping with a dilemma similar to that
of the kingdom: how to roll back associations with puritan, intolerant,
non-pluralistic interpretations of Islam that hinder domestic economic and
social progress and threaten to isolate his country internationally.

It’s a tall order for both countries. Saudi Arabia’s ruling
Al Saud family founded the modern day kingdom by forging a power sharing
agreement with ultra-conservative followers of 18th century preacher
Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The Al Sauds constitute the only Gulf rulers who
cloak their rule in religious legitimacy granted by the country’s ultra-conservative
religious establishment. Losing that legitimacy could endanger their survival.

Successive Pakistani governments benefitted and abetted almost
half a century of massive Saudi funding of ultra-conservative thinking in a bid
to enhance Saudi soft power and counter more nationalist, revolutionary and
liberal worldviews. Pakistani and Saudi interests long jelled in the support of
militant Islamist and jihadist groups that targeted Muslim minorities viewed as
heretics by ultra-conservatives, confronted with US backing Soviet occupation
forces in Afghanistan, nurtured the rise of the Taliban, and served Pakistan in
confronting India in its dispute over Kashmir.

In doing so, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan unleashed a genie
that no longer can be put back in a bottle. It has pervaded Pakistani society
and branches of government in ways that could take a generation to reverse.

The timing of the delay of the court ruling may have been coincidental
but it came days after the Sharif government took a first step in seeking to
change course.

Pakistan’s civilian, military and intelligence leaders had
gathered three days earlier for an emergency meeting in which Sharif and his
ministers warned that key elements of the country’s two-year old national
action plan to eradicate political violence and sectarianism, including
enforcing bans on designated groups, reforming madrassas, and empowering the
National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) had not been implemented. The
20-point plan was adopted after militants had attacked a military school in
Peshawar in December 2014, killing 141 people, including 132 students.

In a blunt statement during the meeting, Foreign Minister
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry charged that Pakistan risked international isolation if it
failed to crack down on militant groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammed,
Lashkar-e-Taiba; and the Haqqani network – all designated as terrorist groups
by the United Nations. Mr. Chaudhry noted that Pakistan’s closest ally, China,
with its massive $46 billion investment in Pakistani infrastructure, continued
to block UN sanctioning of Jaish-i-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar, but was
increasingly questioning the wisdom of doing so.

The court delayed its ruling after one of the judges recused
himself because of his involvement in legal proceedings related to the 2011
assassination of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer by Mumtaz Qadri, a former
elite police force commando. Taseer was a vocal opponent of Pakistan’s draconic
blasphemy laws and supported Ms. Bibi.

Mr. Qadri became a hero despite being sentenced to death.
Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of Islamabad to honour him
after he was executed earlier this year. Authorities feared that a court ruling
in favour of Ms. Bibi would spark mass protests. The delay in the court ruling
simply postpones a potential confrontation.

It is a confrontation that was long coming. Pakistan’s
blasphemy law fits decades-long Saudi use of its political clout and financial
muscle to promote anti-blasphemy laws and curtailing of freedom of expression
and the media beyond its borders.

Notions of blasphemy propagated by the Saudi Arabia have led
the kingdom to execute those that refuse to publicly subscribe to its narrow
interpretation of Islam. In Bangladesh, secular bloggers risk being hacked to
death while jihadists slaughter those they think have insulted their faith in
an effort to stymie all debate. Pakistan’s electronic media regulator this year
took two television shows off the air during Ramadan for discussing the
country’s blasphemy laws as well as the persecution of Ahmadis, a Muslim sect
viewed by ultra-conservatives as non-Muslim.

A proposal in recent years by Saudi Arabia and other Muslim
nations to criminalize blasphemy in international law legitimizes curbs on free
speech and growing Muslim intolerance towards any open discussion of their
faith. The proposal was the culmination
of years in which the kingdom pressured countries to criminalize blasphemy and
any criticism of the Prophet Mohammed.

Increasingly, the pressure constituted the kingdom’s
response to mounting anti-Muslim sentiment and Islamophobia in the wake of
attacks by the Islamic State in European and Middle Eastern nations, including
Paris, Ankara and Beirut, and the October 2015 downing of a Russian airliner,
and mounting criticism of Saudi Arabia’s austere interpretation of Islam and
massive violations of human rights.

The criminalization of blasphemy and the notion of mob
justice resembles campaigns on Western university campuses for the right not to
be offended. Both propagate restrictions on free speech and arbitrary policing
of what can and cannot be said.

In a lengthy article in a Nigerian newspaper, Murtada
Muhammad Gusau, chief imam of two mosques in Nigeria’s Okene Kogi State
debunked the Saudi-inspired crackdown on alleged blasphemists citing multiple
verses from the Qur’an that advocate patience and tolerance and reject the
killing of those that curse or berate the Prophet Mohammed.

Saudi anti-blasphemy activism and efforts to curb press
freedom date back to 1980 when the government wielded a financial carrot and
the stick of a possible rupture in diplomatic relations in an unsuccessful bid
to prevent the airing on British television of Death of a Princess, the true
story of a Saudi princess and the son of a general who were publicly executed
for committing adultery.

Saudi Arabia forced Britain to recall its then ambassador,
James Craig, in protest against what it called “the British Government's
negative attitude toward the screening of the shameful film." In addition, the kingdom imposed limitations
on visas extended to executives of British companies while US construction
companies were asked not to subcontract British firms.

Saudi Arabia further banned British Airways from flying its
Concorde from London to Singapore through the kingdom’s air space. The ban
together with a similar one by Lebanon forced BA to chart a longer route for
the supersonic flight, which wiped out its profit margin.

Scholars Thomas White and Gladys Ganley argued that “the
film was perceived by Saudis as a violation of privacy since it represented a
first look behind a closely drawn curtain into Islamic law as applied in Saudi
Arabia, into Saudi culture, and, perhaps most devastating, into the behaviour
of members of the ruling regime… Much of Saudi criticism of the film was
directed towards what was called its portrayal of Islam as a harsh, insensitive
religion, since the princess was depicted as having been summarily executed
without a confession or a trial. The severity of punishment and the speed with
which the princess was executed put doubts in the minds of viewers as to the
fairness of Koranic justice.”

Concepts of justice as well as of freedom of expression are
at the core of Asia Bibi’s case. So is the question of the kind of state and
society Pakistan should be. It is an issue both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are
grappling with as they realize that what long was a politically convenient
strategy in their various geopolitical struggles is becoming a political and
international liability. The problem for both is that reversing course is
easier said than done and involves travelling down a volatile, perilous road.

Monday, October 10, 2016

The soccer soft power contrast between Qatar and Iceland
speaks volumes. A comparison of the strategies of both countries demonstrates
that it takes more than money to leverage soccer to create political,
geopolitical and economic opportunity.

Money and world soccer body FIFA’s desire to take one of the
world’s foremost sporting events beyond Europe and the Americas helped Qatar
win the right to host the 2022 World Cup. Six years after the awarding, Qatar
is a nation under fire by human rights and labour activists for its
controversial labour regime, has yet to convincingly counter widespread
suspicions of wrongdoing in its campaign to win its hosting rights, and is
suspected by pro-Israeli circles, Christian conservatives and Arab detractors
of supporting militant Islamist groups.

Iceland is a nation that is emerging from virtual bankruptcy
in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. It lacked the funds to mount the kind
of high-profile, flashy sports diplomacy that is central to Qatar’s soft power
strategy. Rather than focusing on attention-grabbing moves, Iceland built its
strategy around performance on the pitch that took many by surprise and
embedded it favourably in the consciousness of soccer fans across the globe.

Oil and gas money has bought Qatar entry into the boardrooms
of major corporations, catapulted into being a major player in financial
markets, and allowed it to employ sports, arts, air transport, high profile
real estate acquisitions, state-owned broadcaster Al Jazeera, and a
high-powered, fast-moving, mediation-driven foreign policy as building blocks
of its soft power. The strategy has enabled the tiny Gulf state to punch above
its weight. It has also allowed Qatar to host multiple international sporting
events and international conferences that have helped put it on the international
map and develop niche tourism.

What all of this did not buy Qatar is popularity and respect
beyond the corridors of power. British You Gov polls showed that 77% of Brits
and 90% of British soccer fans believed that the awarding of the World Cup to
Qatar was the result of bribery and corruption. 78 percent favoured the
tournament being moved to another country. A similar survey concluded that
Qatar Airways had succeeded where the hosting of the World Cup had failed: 96
percent of those polled rated the airline from positive to very positive.

Nonetheless, Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona,
which figures prominently in the airlines’ advertising, was extended in July
despite an online petition last year that called on the club to ditch the
Qataris as its shirt sponsor unless it “treats its workers fairly” attracted
within days more than 50,000 signatures. Beyond being a sponsor’s worst
nightmare, the petition constituted a first indication of a potential groundswell
of fan opposition to Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup. There is little evidence
that Qatari reforms of its kafala or labour sponsorship system that have
introduced change but not fully abolished it have substantially improved the
Gulf state’s image.

Qatar’s reputational issues were highlighted this month when
the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV) gave FIFA three weeks to avoid
legal action in a Swiss court on behalf of a Bangladeshi migrant worker, Nadim
Sharaful Alam. The FNV, the biggest union in the Netherlands with 1.1 million
members, is demanding in the first such legal challenge targeting FIFA that the
soccer body admit that it should have demanded abolishment of the kafala system
as part of the awarding process or concede that the World Cup should not have
been awarded to the Gulf state.

In contrast to Qatar, Iceland’s stunning performance in
June’s European championship and its steady progress in the 2018 World Cup
qualifiers – it handed Turkey a defeat on Sunday – has positioned it as the
underdog that everyone loves. Not only has it made Iceland a darling of a
global soccer-crazy public, it has boosted the country’s bottom line.
Icelanders from the country’s president to its foremost writers and businessmen
celebrate the impact soccer has had on their ability to do business.

“I was in Brazil for the Paralympics [in September] and
every Brazilian I met said: ‘Iceland did well in the football.’ Iceland now
exists in Brazil, as it were. It will be the same in other countries. Iceland
has really made itself known through football and that will help the country in
many ways,” the country’s president, Guoni Thorlacius Johannesson, told The
Guardian.

“I was in America to promote my books in September and
everyone you meet has been to Iceland, wants to go to Iceland or their friends
have just been there. It’s worldwide. The football team has really put Iceland
into focus again,” added Icelandic crime writer Ragnar Jonasson, whose books
have been translated into 15 languages and have skyrocketed in France in recent
months.

Ua Matthiasdottir, rights director at Forlagio, Iceland’s
largest publishing house, echoed Mr. Jonasson’s experience, saying soccer had
made it easier for him to forge links to publishers in other countries. “It
makes it easier when people know your country actually does exist, and the
football certainly helped,” the British paper quoted him as saying.

Exports of Icelandic products ranging from literature to
yoghurt and frozen food have boomed in the wake of Iceland’s soccer success as
has tourism and finance. Dairy producer MS Dairies has enlisted the country’s
foremost player, Eiour Guojohnsen, as its ambassador. Increased passenger
traffic has prompted privately-held Icelandic airline, Wow Air, to order three
new aircraft.

Qatar’s soccer team too has been performing exceptionally
well, raising hopes that it could qualify for the first time for the World Cup
finals. The country’s state-owned airline, Qatar Airways, has been continuously
expanding its already significant fleet and destination network. None of this
has impacted the country’s continued reputational issues.

The bottom line is that soccer’s potential as a tool of
public diplomacy and soccer is considerable. It takes however more than success
on the pitch and money to harness its power. It takes a mix of policies that
address both domestic and foreign concerns, an efficient public relations and
communications policy, and a measure of transparency and accountability.

To be fair the issues for Iceland are easier. Unlike Qatar,
it is not struggling with a demography in which the citizenry accounts for a
small minority of the overall population that forces the government to walk a
delicate tightrope between domestic and foreign concerns. And Iceland does not
have the kind of rights issues Qatar is dealing with.

Nonetheless, the comparison between two nations in which
soccer has become a key element of their public diplomacy, suggests that Qatar
could benefit from taking a close look at Iceland’s successful exploitation of
the sport. Invariably, Qatar’s issues are complex and not resolved with a
stroke of a pen. There are however policies and communication strategies it
could adopt which could significantly increase its return on investment in the
world’s most popular game.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Sunni scholars in Saudi Arabia and their Shiite counterparts
in Iran may be at war over who is a Muslim, but there is one thing they agree
on: soccer detracts from religious obligations.

Iran, in the latest skirmish between soccer and Islam, is
debating the propriety of playing a 2018 World Cup qualifier against South
Korea on October 11, the day Shiites celebrate Tasua, the 9th day of
the month of Moharram, one of the holiest days in the Shiite calendar on which
the faithful commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet
Muhammad.

The incident highlighted the concern of conservative men of
the cloth irrespective of what branch of Islam they adhere to who see soccer as
competition because it is one of the few things that can evoke the kind of
deep-seated passion in the Middle East and North Africa that religion does.

Saudi-Iranian tensions, the Sunni-Shiite affinity with
regard to soccer notwithstanding, erupted on the pitch earlier this year when
Saudi clubs refused to play Asian Football Confederation (AFC) matches in the
Islamic republic because of deteriorating relations between the two countries
as a result of a struggle for regional hegemony.

The Iranian debate was also being waged three years after Iran
and Saudi Arabia played another crucial game days after President Hassan Rouhani
was elected into office. Iranian authorities worried at the time that the match
could become a venue for anti-government protests if Mr. Rouhani were to be
defeated by a hardliner.

In the end, the match provided an opportunity to celebrate
two victories: Mr. Rouhani’s electoral triumph and the success of the Iranian
national team.

The current debate erupted when Ayatollah Mohammed Yazdi, a
former head of the Iranian judiciary and ex-hard line member of the Assembly of
Experts that elects and monitors Iran’s Supreme Leader, took Youth Affairs and
Sports Minister Mahmoud Goudarzi to task for allowing next week’s match to go
ahead on Tasua. A stark critic of Mr. Rouhani’s more liberal social and
cultural policies, Ayatollah Yazdi currently heads the Society of Seminary
Teachers in the holy city of Qom.

The date for the match was fixed long before it was clear on
what days the commemoration of Imam Hussein’s death would fall. Precise dates
of Muslim holy days are often determined by moon sightings.

Deputy parliament speaker Ali Motahari, scion of another
prominent Shiite scholar, ridiculed the ayatollah’s criticism, according to Al
Monitor, in an open letter. “Imagine that Iran scored against South Korea
and some people cheered. Does that mean that the people are cheering the
martyrdom of Imam Hussein? If someone after years meets his mother, father or
child on the eve of Ashura, should he then not be happy and smiling to avoid
violating the sanctity of the imam?” Mr. Motahari asked.

In an apparent understanding of the power of soccer, Mr.
Motahari warned that Ayatollah Yazdi’s approach would ultimately mean soccer’s
defeat of Islam. The ayatollah’s position, he said was comparable to “the activities
of the Catholic Church in medieval times that resulted in the Europeans’ escape
from religion.”

The debate has sparked a rumour mill of unconfirmed reports
on how the Iranian soccer association may be trying to mediate the opposing
positions. Various reports suggested that Iran had requested that Korean fans
restrain their expressions of support for their team or that the Korean
national team wear dark coloured shirts rather than their traditional red ones
as an acknowledgement of the mourning of the death of Imam Hussein.

Ambivalence towards soccer among Saudi and Iranian scholars
is deep-rooted.

Soccer’s popularity in Iran forced the mullahs shortly after
their toppling of the shah in 1979 to drop their initial opposition to the
game. The mullah’s hesitancy toward the sport was expressed in a pamphlet
published a year after the revolution by the government’s propaganda arm that
argued that money spent on soccer would be better invested in social and
economic development.

Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment has similarly
struggled with soccer. The official fatwa website of the General Presidency of
Scholarly Research and Ifta (Fatwa) has endorsed the game but banned
competitions – a ruling the Saudi government has consistently ignored.

To Saudi Arabia’s Muslim scholars Iran’s Shiites are
heretics. Iran denounces Saudi Arabia’s puritan Wahhabi interpretation of Islam
as the inspiration of Sunni Muslim jihadism. There seems little that the two
countries and their religious establishment can agree on, which makes the
meeting of the minds on soccer all the more remarkable.

Sporticos

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile